Sunday, April 29, 2012

April has been one crazy month. Apart from the weddings, the weather is just sizzling hot at 36 degrees every single day. Thank goodness for the tons of good things coming our way, we don't feel the heat anymore! And how awesome are these two international features?! The first one is in Destination Inspirations which specializes in destination weddings. The second one, however, is what brought us to Cloud 9: our first-ever appearance on Green Wedding Shoes! For years, GWS has been our source of inspiration and we always share their posts on our Facebook! It's just amazing that at last, we get featured in their pages! I hope our fresh flowers get featured next time, but for now, kudos to our DIY team, {etc} Handmade Goodness, for making it to GWS!

For our Cuban-inspired wedding below, please read all about it HERE. Awesome to be featured along with friends (MyPhotato, Toto Villaruel, Passion Cooks, & The Mango Farm)! Woot! Congratulations, everyone!

The second set is our first-ever Green Wedding Shoes feature! I think every wedding supplier around the world would do anything to have a wedding featured in a US blog like GWS and wow, a dream come true! *faints* Read all about it HERE. Super thanks to your couple, Cyrus & Kai, for making it all happen. Awesome to be working with international photographer, Nelwin Uy, too, who's making a wave around the world for his beautiful pictures. Nelwin is the only second Filipino photographer whose work is featured in GWS (the first was MangoRed). Woot! Here's to more features! ^_^

Saturday, April 28, 2012

It may have been lost on you, dear readers, that our couple in this post are named Joseph & Maria! Oh, what are the odds, right? *giggles* This is one of a string of weddings we've worked on that's shot by Black Tie Project. We admit that in the beginning we weren't exactly fond of their style (we found the photos too dark and there's just too much use of flash) but lo and behold, things have changed since last year.

It's amazing how this group, composed by unbelievably young men, has steadily climbed the charts, so to speak, and has become a buzzword in the wedding industry. Here's sharing with you this beautiful set (a morning wedding!) shot just last week. ^_^

WELCOME! BIENVENIDO!

OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR DESIGN

REFINED SIMPLICITY. This is something we work hard to perfect. While we may have differing views on what is "elegant", we humbly present here our guiding principles in design.

1.) Simple and tasteful. The Filipino's current penchant for the "production number-act" is something we have discussed and studied thoroughly among ourselves.

This may be something we have acquired from television and from our increasing buying power. In the end, our homes end up being filled - to every crook and cranny - with things: huge aparadors and dividers go side by side with knick-knacks from our travels, as well as with our seeming fetish for souvenirs from just about any event and place. In short, horror vacui. However, Filipino design as gleaned from our history and traditions, hardly border on the loud and boorish.

The work of our indigineous peoples and local weavers attest to the beauty of our artwork. This concept - simple and tasteful - is at the core our design sensibility.

2.) Conversation-friendly and comfortable arrangements. Although the aim to make our designs conversation pieces in themselves is already a given, VATEL MANILA draws the line on the theatricality that pervades the current design concepts of many catering and event firms in Manila.

In our review of current practices, many design firms resort to the "shock policy" - that is, they capitalize on their ability to shock guests with venues teeming with flowers, lights and other pompous what-nots like employing yards upon yards of fabric, supposedly to make it "an event like no other" or "an event to be remembered".

Sometimes, even tables - from the main sponsors to the guests tables in a wedding setting, for example - are filled to the brim with flowers designed to block guests from seeing each other thus impeding conversation; tables are bathed in silk or organza, apparently designed to astound the visitor BUT without consideration of their comfort or safety.

The end result: uncomfortable and crampy arrangements. While we only suggest and can provide suggestions as to how to put life into your own concepts, the overall idea, really, is to effortlessly evoke images of the grand and the sophisticated without being distracting and obstrusive.

In the end, the true winners will be you and your guests - with the reward of pleasant memories arising from the things your ideas and our guidance / expertise can do together.

My Last Day At Seventeen by Doug DuBois
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[image: My Last Day At Seventeen by Doug DuBois]
In 2009, photographer Doug DuBois began working with a group of teenagers
from the Russel Heights housing e...